I’ve got my senior taken care of…now on to the Freshman! What schools do you suggest researching for PreMed?
1)Would like to leave Illinois but will start search in the Midwest
2)No preference at this point on size/location…just beginning to look
3)#3 in class of 350 at this point; 4.0 GPA; will take all honors/AP classes along the way. No test scores yet.
4)Premed (likely path Pediatrics, non-surgical)
5)Moderate Cost. With premed open to $50-$60k/yr though most will be in loans at that price point.
You can only borrow $5,500 without a cosigner in the first year (increasing slightly in later years). Cosigned student loans are generally a bad idea for both the student and cosigner.
Also, medical school is very expensive. Dragging a large amount of undergraduate debt through medical school will just increase the debt load you will have to pay off when you start medical practice at age 30 or later. High debt load may force you to chase the money even if your preference is to do something else (e.g. you may feel that you cannot afford to be a primary care physician if you have a high debt load).
Thanks. I’m aware of all these things but with this being the first round of “where should we look” and keeping the options very broad, those realities and conversations will come down the line. Many $50-60K schools become quite affordable with scholarships, so I’m not prepared to eliminate them just yet She’s a Freshman, so I just want her to start looking at what is appealing about different locations.
But make sure that she knows ahead of time that if a merit scholarship is necessary for affordability that admission without the scholarship = rejection. You do not want her to fall in love with a college that is too expensive.
Make sure that you know what your price limit is so that you can tell her what net price she has to target. Check net price calculators and scholarship offerings to see if a college is likely to be affordable before suggesting it to her.
If you want to leave Illinois but stay in the Midwest(ish), my first thoughts are Washington University, Carleton College, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Rice and Baylor. If she earns National Merit scholar, University of Oklahoma has attractive scholarships. Probably many other options from other flagship state universities too.
Any major school will do a good job of providing premed courses. Hopefully your child will continue her good performance for the next three years since she’s just a freshman (I’m surprised your HS has rankings after only one semester in school).
It is advisable to start with colleges in mind where she will not have to take out more than her federal loans ($27K total in 4 years), and no parent loans. Build the list from there. If you are eligible for need based aid and her stats will be high, you can look at higher ranked schools. If not, then build a more realistic financial list. Don’t offer her choices you can’t afford. It is cruel.
Agree with above comments that you should begin by running net price calculators and looking at schools that offer decent merit aid. Medical school continues to be very difficult proposition. Grades are important, but research opportunities, recommendations and volunteer / observing in a medical setting are also vital to being accepted.
Knox College has program with George Washington University that accepts students into their med school after sophomore year. Student needs to meet certain science reqs but requires student to major or minor degree in a subject area outside of natural or physical sciences. Other Midwest schools with excellent track record in sciences / pre-med include: Lawrence University, Grinnell, St Olaf, Macalester, Carleton. Also, consider Loyola, DePaul, Marquette, Univ of Illinois.
If she is open to med school in Missouri, take a look at Drury Universities preMed scholars program that offers guaranteed admission to med school if she has ACT and gpa to qualify. She would also likely qualify for their top automatic scholarship.
Maybe this year she can visit a LAC, a mid-size uni, & a large uni either near your home or as part of a trip to visit family or a vacation. The particulars of the school aren’t important yet, but she might begin to get an idea of size & location (in a town/city? Self-contained “bubble”?) preferences. Then once you have more stats in hand from the PSAT or an achievement test you will have a better idea of selectivity (and if you are looking for merit, you generally want schools where she is in the top quartile of their applicant pool).
All this may be a bit premature for a kid who is only a HS freshman. However, the cost-management strategy probably will constrain the kinds of schools you consider. The most generous need-based aid tends to come from very selective private schools. The most merit money tends to come from less selective schools located in areas that may be considered (rightly or wrongly) less attractive. In many cases, the best balance of quality and affordability is at in-state public schools (and the key factor is the sticker price more than the merit/n-b aid).
If you are looking at LAC’s, I would add Beloit College to the list. If she keeps her grades up, it would be a good safety. They cap merit aid at $35k/year. If she can get the top merit (likely requires NMF). The total direct cost would be $22k/year today. It also satisfies your OOS requirement by a good 1/4 of a mile.
Consider Ohio State - quite high in the number of applicants (and matriculants) to medical school. Decent financial aid for high stat out-of-state applicants. Large school but offers a variety of majors that a pre-med student could be interested in (neuroscience, biomedical engineering, biochemistry, besides usual choices like biology).
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Any major (eg STEM, history, music, foreign language, etc) that premed is interested in and can do well GPA, along with premed reqs, will do for med school. Bio tends to be usual, perhaps out of interest, but also because of course overlap.
She’s a Freshman, so I just want her to start looking at what is appealing about different locations.